Chapter 45: Ch. 41: Serendipitous Meetings Part I

Colossi Rougewood, (Sequioadendron colossi) and Queen Sequoia, (Sequioadendron reginanteum) are a potion maker’s best friends. Their sap provides a neutral coloured base. Also, if possible, the pigment of the Colossi Rougewood can be used to make beauty products for maidens, such as rouge and different shades of coloration for the lips and eyes... -Sylby’s Apothecary Guide for Herbalists and Alchemists.

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'What in the blue!?’ Arthur hissed as he found himself stumbling on nothingness. Arthur had never seen the Mother Grove in person, but he felt like he’d taken a wrong turn into someone’s house. And it was dark; like can’t-see-beyond-the-tip-of-your-nose dark. Worse, Galaeron was nowhere to be found and he had no weapons with him.

Or perhaps, he'd turned a corner and come out of someone's broom closet a hundred years in the future.

‘Faerie―’Arthur facepalmed in realisation. ‘She was of the freaking Faerie. Just what have I gotten myself into this time?’

The Faerie were not exactly known to be straightforward, and for a moment, the smell of mildew in the air made him think that he had moved through time. Then again, she might not have been Faerie but a figment of his delusions.

’No thank you,' he shuddered. He had had enough curveballs to last a lifetime. He strangled the thought and bludgeon it in the head with a cudgel.

'[Light]!' Arthur intonated, letting fly a ball of magelight. He let out an unmanly shriek as his magelight revealed towering silhouettes in his vicinity.

“Frag! That was scary!” Arthur swore, clutching at his chest. He’d almost walked into a group of statues, thinking they were out to get him. ‘[Light]! [Light]! [Light]!’ he murmured, throwing his magelights like tennis balls. They went floating ahead of him, lightning up a domed antechamber.

Arthur was standing on a pedestal with pairs of statues spaced at intervals on the steps like a parade; renditions of knights hoisting their lances in salute across from their compatriots. They wore form fitting plate scalemail armour from neck to foot, had flowing manes of hair, and capes that billowed as though there was wind. He noticed the ears—they didn't have the rounded point of the Sylvani. And they were almost twice as long, meeting at a point closer to an arrowhead’s . Had they not been so lifelike, he wouldn’t have gathered that they were even made from marble.

Their facial profiles were also narrower, longer, and their cheeks higher. They were like the female entity from before. Their bearing was imperious just by being; these were the Illvari, born of the Faerie. Arthur felt his hand go to the Pendant of Verwandeln whose weight he’d felt on his chest. At his prompting, it faded into existence. Arthur felt an involuntary shudder as he recalled the being’s voice and had a sudden urge to look behind him.

He exhaled in relief. There was nothing behind him except for a gate like the one he’d entered at the grove. Nonetheless, the crystal had none of the lustre, as though it had not been used for years.

‘Joy! Just had to be one way huh?’ Arthur groaned. ‘Might as well move along.’

Feeling vulnerable without armour, he reached into his inventory chest and came away with the cuirass Aeskyre had given to him. The wurmhide armour was a loss, but he could always get another one made. To his legs went the greaves and for a weapon, he retrieved the training sword he’d used back in Sturm’s Keep. Given the circumstances, it was better than nothing.

He took the three steps down from the pedestal. Regardless of how furtive he made his stride as he traversed the isle between the statues, he found the noise of his footsteps grating on his teeth.

‘Damn, should have asked for sylvani boots instead,’ Arthur thought, chewing on his lip. He scanned the shadows, and increased the brightness of his magelight, wary of ambushes from between the statues. Closer to the floor, they had about two feet on him and looked intimidating with their stone gazes. He could not shake the feeling that they were watching him.

Arthur swallowed and felt for his spells. They came to him, easier than he could have imagined. And the depth of his mana pool had increased considerably.

‘Thirty [Spark Bolt] or 10 [Thunder Bolts] every 3 pars, that’s cheating,’ he gawped. Hold on, how do I know that? His eyes went round. ‘No, focus!’ he chastened, himself. The crystal clarity with which he could compute by feeling alone was unnerving. His magic felt malleable in his mind.

Looming outside the range of his [Light] spell were the silhouettes of colonnades forming a veranda against an arched entrance. There were stairs going upwards. Despite the noise he’d made, nothing had jumped at his face. However, Arthur kept his wits about him.

As he made his first step on the staircase, sconces bearing magelight lit up as though they’d been waiting for him. Gooseflesh rippled across his arms as his mind whirled about the possibility that there was someone expecting his arrival.

Arthur swallowed his dread, shoving it into the deepest recesses from whence it’d come. His indignation at being snatched away just when he was going to meet with Nora knew no bounds. He took the second step of the spiral staircase. Nothing moved, no sound, no air, just an eerie silence like a yawning pit. Arthur chuckled deprecatingly, as only a man with frayed nerves could, and continued walking.

 

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Arthur didn’t count the number of stairs, nor the landings, but he thought he’d gotten in some decent cardio. Rather than being winded, he was more incensed that his mind would start spinning from the spiralling ascent. Then he arrived.

‘Another hallway,’ Arthur sighed. He’d come out of the basement and found a vacant hallway. On the walls, magelight, not chromastone, shone in sconces of burnished bronze-gold that sprouted out of the walls like branches from a tree.

Hemming the hallway were sienna coloured walls engraved with bas relief of trees, vines, and flowers. Some of the leaves were gilded and glinted, unmarred as the day they’d been made. Ornate cornices joined the walls to a vaulted ceiling with frescoes whose features moved like sifting sand. The black wooden floor was polished to a shine and had wavy grains of white, giving it the appearance of marble.

The end of the hallway terminated in a balcony with ornate bannisters with a view of the Erythean night. Arthur’s blood froze as his mind reeled in shock. His perception of time had been messed up badly.

Against his better judgement, he ran across the hall, his footsteps squeaking against the waxed floors. His advance slowed to a tentative jog as he saw a barrier of some sort. The night sky looked wrong. Arthur saw the stars and what might have been the twin moons warped into blurs of white and coral, like comets.

“Where am I?” Arthur asked no one in particular. He continued walking towards the balcony, watching the many closed doors on either side of the hallway with wary eyes. There was an open archway towards the right, but he was still on edge, expecting one of the doors to creak open and reveal what manner of host haunted the building.

“How am I supposed to get out of here?” Arthur muttered aloud. As if on cue, the double doors to the left, nearest the balcony, opened of their own accord. Arthur whirled, bearing his practice sword to bear, but nothing came out at him. Only light spilled light into the hallway.

Arthur blew air through pursed lips as he thought of making a run for the descending staircase on the right. He was leery of stepping into a room that just so happened to open at the same time he’d voiced his intentions. However, morbid curiosity won out and he found himself drifting towards the open doors with his sword still raised and spells on his lips.

Stepping past the threshold, his first view from the doorway was that the room seemed ostentatiously decorated like a private vintage study. Exotic paintings and artistry adorned the wall space above the shelves while a chandelier that seemed to grow out of the ceiling like an upside down tree lent a soft glow to the room. The left side was taken up by books and tomes from the wall to the floor, followed by a bookwheel with bookmarked pages.

A crescent shaped chaise lounge with woven upholstery came immediately after, decked on both sides by lamps that looked like upturned flower bulbs. A rug with exotic mandalas covered the floor, beneath a small round table made of crystal. There was a clear aisle leading to a gothic style door directly ahead, and then the right half of the room began.

It was homely, in a cabin in the woods sort of way, as the smell of pine and books wafted in the air. The comfortably balanced warmth had Arthur expecting to find a cozy fireplace; He very much wanted to feel his tension drain away from his shoulders. But that was not to be.

There was no missing the old sylvani behind an ancient study table. He barely raised his head at Arthur’s entrance , engrossed in whatever quillwork seemed to be flying in the air around his head and on the table. The white haired sylvani with a gilded wreath circlet seemed in his element, like a dean in their office. There was a sound like wind blowing through a tundra, which made Arthur shiver despite his cloak before the sylvani spoke.

“Hmm, you are only a heartbeat late. Sit,” he motioned, not even taking his attention off his work. Arthur seemed a bit taken aback by the absurdity of it all. He’d been forcibly ripped away in the middle of a transition and dumped into the Primals' knew where else. And that right there seemed to be more than his fair share of things that bordered on the strange. He felt a tingle in his spine; he could not put a finger on it exactly, but he had a feeling that he had met that man before. Or perhaps it was misplaced deja vu. He didn’t know how much time he’d lost in the Aether.

Arthur’s pride warred with his urge to do just that, not only at the prompt of the strange man but also at the sheer exhaustion of it all. There was a niggling feeling at the back of his mind that the old male in front of him could wipe the floor with him without lifting a finger. That preternatural sense of danger was too hard to ignore even from his gut. Resigned, he dismissed the wooden sword, but held his spells at the ready.

The youth fidgeted, but not once did he take his eyes off his host. For a few parquartz, only the ticking of an ornate chroniker and the scritching of magical quills on paper pervaded the silence. Arthur went to voice his thoughts, but his words failed him and his throat went dry.

What would he even say to the strange host who was barely fazed by his entrance? How would he break the ice that seemed to have become glacial permafrost for an attempt at conversation?

A chime from the chroniker and a flip of the hourglass visible in the chroniker’s see-through case broke the silence. The orchestra of several quills scritching in unison halted as they drifted to their holder like whirlybirds. The sheaves of paper, rolled into scrolls, which were marked by a golden seal that appeared out of thin air before they burst into motes of magic.

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Arthur seemed to hold his breath as his eccentric host deigned to meet his eyes. They stared across the table, unflinchingly, as if examining an exotic animal.

“You’re far away from home, Son of O’reilly,” he said.

It took a heartbeat before his statement registered. Arthur got up with a start, feeling like a fraud who’d finally been found out. His cover had been blown, but how? He looked to the doors and realised they’d barred themselves of their own accord. The youth felt a chill crawling up his spine.

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“ At ease Arthur Sturmdrache,” the elder grinned. His sudden change in demeanour was a sudden departure from the old codger. His expression turned placid quickly and Arthur almost believed it was an illusion, but the grandfatherly aura was still there.

The weight of aeons sat heavily on his shoulders like a mantle. You could see it in his blue eyes, behind a gaze as glacial as ice. His aura was sharp and cold, like a keen blade forged from Eisgleiss. His hair was white and was also the first sylvani that he'd seen with crow's feet and a beard. He didn't need to see the signs to feel that here sat someone as ancient as recent history.

“I understand your reluctance to trust people. You haven’t told even the daywalker by your side have you?—” he said.

“What’s it to you huh?!” Arthur said suddenly on his feet. The Elder regarded him with not-unkind eyes. Arthur felt his ears burn in embarrassment. He gingerly sat back in his seat, nervously tousling his hair.

“I intended to tell her when we met today; before someone went ahead and got me shanghaied in transit,” he said. Words pouring out of him like a leaking bucket; it seemed like a zero sum to hide something that was already in the wind.

The Elder had all too knowing eyes, but he didn’t look like he’d judged him or reacted in any way that feigned surprise. Either he had a cliff for a poker face or he’d seen his fair share of things otherworldly.

“How did you know? She didn’t tell you, did she?” Arthur asked. Somehow, there was a catharsis in letting go of the identity that had defined him since the start of his journey. His status as a [Lost Worlder].

“Time is like a giant tapestry of ever shifting threads,” he said, sagely steepling his hands. “Every thread is a chain of events that affects another on the horizon or adjacent to it. If there's a bur, I would know.”

”So am I a bur now or are we fated to meet?” Arthur said, chuckling deprecatingly. “Am I not supposed to exist huh?”

“On the contrary, Son of O'reilly, or should I say, Arthur Sturmdrache. Hmm, you need a third name to that vouch of identity. I digress, oftentimes the tapestry is bland, plain and monochrome. Sometimes, a bur is the start of embroidery and what does embroidery do? It joins adjacent threads, adds colour so to speak—”

“So?” Arthur gawked in incomprehension.

“That is it—” he shrugged.“Now then, can we come back to the present? I believe you and I can help each other?”

‘Damn oldie, getting a kick out of leaving me with unanswered questions,’

“How exactly?” Arthur asked sceptically. He scratched at his head wondering what the convoluted explanation was supposed to serve.

“The Dwar, the progeny of Eog...they need to be checked lest their pride grow too big for their gut,” he said, looking towards the dwarven chroniker as he stroked his beard.

“And how am I supposed to do that?”

“The dungeon, it was you, wasn't it? ” the Elder asked him. Glacial blue eyes seemed to bore into him as though seeing through everything.

Arthur felt gooseflesh ripple through his arms as the temperature dropped precipitously. He found himself suddenly exhaling mist. The Elder blinked, and the temperature suddenly reverted to normal.

“You did not flinch—good. You shall need that spine for what is to come,” Elder Volemhir said.

“The shapers of Stone and Fire have much in common with you. Unconventional ways of looking at nature, and bending its whims to your bidding. Their constitution is generally skewed towards brawn and craft rather than magic, it is a given. However, even that has a cost―” he seemed to pause for dramatic effect before he continued.

“Their advances will soon crest a zenith from whence a cascade of inventions shall come to pass; new magitech, weaponry—expansion. They will be a force to contend with. Nonetheless, their tightfistedness is their hubris—” the old sylvani said, shaking his head. “And who knows better of unchecked progress than you, Arthur Sturmdrache?

“So she did tell you after all, ” Arthur said with a shrug. “I don't know where I fit all of this,”

“Ah, but you will—,” the sylvani said, as he drew his attention to something below his table, perhaps a drawer. Arthur was suddenly on his guard; the sylvani seemed amused at his jumpiness.

“We Sylvani are of the Air and Water and have for long kept them in check—Alas we are far behind; we were far behind till you came.” he said. Some sort of mechanism sounded and Arthur suddenly felt a lurch of inertia.

The wall length pane of glass behind the Elder that Arthur had assumed to be some obscure map had changed as if the entire room had moved. Which was basically what it did, because on the other side of the windowpane was new scenery. An aer dock.

“Come along young Arthur,” the Sylvani prompted suddenly on his feet. Arthur wordlessly peeled himself from his seat and let the scenery beyond the glass pane reel him in as he went to stand beside the Elder.

The room had become a superstructure overlooking droves of sylvani at work on maintenance aprons and vessels. A dozen aerships were held aloft on their perches in various stages of construction. He saw the arbormancers weave their magic, shaping hulls into sleek shapes.

Standing there beside the Elder, only then did he realise how tall the sylvani was, the tallest specimen he’d ever seen. He had the build of a grizzled warrior, a long-sleeved tunic with ornamental seams and esoteric accoutrements hid a wiry frame. Yet he carried himself like a statesman. It was there in his stoic, albeit calculating gaze of his blue eyes.

The gothic door on the left wall opened to admit a familiar face who seemed as surprised as Arthur at the encounter. Behind her came her subordinates toting a large chest.

“Esteemed Elder Volemhir,” Szephia saluted. “We have brought the artefacts at your behest.” she said. Her searching gaze met Arthur who seemed to shrug.

“Hmm, you may remain Szephia,” the Elder said, gazing pointedly at the two other sylvani who’d carried the 2 metra long chest like a weapon’s cache. They promptly saluted and moved outside.

“What do you say young Arthur, does this sweeten the pot? Your friend shall, of course, be with us shortly,” the Elder said. Mage Scout Szephia opened the chest to reveal the things within. Arthur thinned his lips and let out a half-exhale.

‘Let’s get this over with.’ “What would you want me to do?” Arthur sighed.

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